“They opened my cell and said, ‘The Russians are coming now and they’re going to shoot everyone’: the story of a prisoner from the Izyum prison”
Source: Grunt
Author: Nadiya Sukha
The liberation of the Kharkiv region is both our joy and our pain. After the Ukrainian military drove the Russians out of these territories, traces of horrific crimes and atrocities are being discovered there every day: mass graves, ruins, charred buildings, and torture chambers. In Vovchansk, Kupiansk, Balakliya, Kozacha Lopan, Shevchenkove, and Izium, torture chambers have been discovered, mostly in police station buildings.
…A man approaches Ukrainian law enforcement officers at the site of a mass grave in Izyum. “Journalists need to be brought to the torture chamber in Izyum,” he says, while an investigator is giving a statement to the press. Maksym—as the man introduces himself—has been in these dungeons himself. The occupiers detained him a week before the city was liberated. Thanks to the liberation of Izyum, the man managed to escape.
GRUNT recounts his story.
“They didn’t explain anything”
I was just at home. The police arrived—well, guys with automatic weapons. They’d show up in different ways. Sometimes in a KamAZ, sometimes in a “Typhoon.” This time, it was just a four-person sabotage and reconnaissance group.
We’ve really learned to listen and hear everything here. If someone drives by, you have to listen carefully. And I heard the sound of a car driving by and stopping somewhere. They stopped near the neighbors—so I wouldn’t notice.
I saw the men with assault rifles through the window. I opened the door. They immediately shouted, “Hands against the wall!” and handcuffed me. I just stood there in handcuffs the whole time they searched the place. They found the keys to my second apartment. We drove there. They conducted a search there. And then—they took me to prison.
They didn’t explain anything. Nor did they explain anything the next day.
“In their slang, torture and electric shocks are called ‘warming up.’”
Of course, I was expecting these explanations. But they simply led me out, pulled a hood over my eyes, and took me—as it turned out—to the torture chamber. They handcuffed me and hooked me up to an electric current.
For the first two days, no one asked me anything—there was only torture. I tried to ask: What do you want? They replied: You know yourself. During the first two days, our “communication” consisted only of such short phrases.
On the third day, there was no torture. They brought me in for questioning. But I was in very poor condition. I had a hood over my head. I couldn’t see anything: it was dark in there—the room was dark—a basement with no light. They had headlamps and were shining them on me. They said, “Let’s have a normal conversation.” I replied, “Let’s do it.” Then the questions began: “When did the SBU recruit you?” “Who recruited you?”
As I understood it, at first they try to completely break a person. It takes two days to break a person. As they put it: “We were ‘warming him up.’” In their slang, torture and electric shocks are called “warming up.” Only after that did they begin the interrogations.
I was held captive for a week—the last week before the Ukrainian army’s offensive and the liberation of the city.
The Russians carried out the torture in prison. The “Elener” members acted as “police.” They also served as prison guards.
There were three of us in one cell. The other two were former ATO fighters. Local guys who had taken part in combat operations in Donbas in 2014–2015. I’m just an ordinary civilian. On the last three days, they brought in a fourth person.
He was a young guy. They brought him in blindfolded. We started asking him questions. He said he’d been brought from Balakliya. He said he’d left the Ukrainian Armed Forces—that he and his comrades had fled on February 25… They’d been staying with a family for three months, and then decided to cross into Ukraine. The Russians detained him.
And so he tells us his story and says, “Until yesterday, I was in Balakliya. And then a force majeure happened.” We didn’t even ask what kind of force majeure it was. It wasn’t until the next day that he let slip that Balakliya had been taken. We asked, “What do you mean?!” That’s when the meaning of the phrase “force majeure” finally sank in for me. That’s how we found out about the liberation of the cities.
And when Ukraine was advancing on Izyum, the whole city was already buzzing.
“If anything happens—tomorrow they’ll toss a grenade into everyone’s food trough”
When the Ukrainian army entered the city, they fled. I was lucky to escape.
The night before, the Russians were very nervous. Some new guards came to us—not the same ones as before. They said Ukraine was advancing. And if anything happened, tomorrow they’d throw a grenade into each “feeding trough.”
The next morning, the “Eleners” rushed in. They were fleeing, already dressed in civilian clothes. They opened all the cells and warned us to run—saying, “The Russians are coming now; they’ll shoot you.”
There was a room with a large closet. It had open compartments. That’s where they kept personal belongings confiscated during the arrest, including passports. But I couldn’t find mine.
We all scattered. It was such a sunny day back then. I ran through the city. I didn’t want to fall into their hands again at all.
They usually guarded the bridge. When I crossed the river via the bridge, I asked people, “Is anyone there?” They gave different answers. I ran to the other end of the city and saw a long column of Russian military vehicles lined up along the highway. They were heading toward the village of Oskil.
And then I made it to Ukraine. And thank God.
Author: Nadiya Sukha
The liberation of the Kharkiv region is both our joy and our pain. After the Ukrainian military drove the Russians out of these territories, traces of horrific crimes and atrocities are being discovered there every day: mass graves, ruins, charred buildings, and torture chambers. In Vovchansk, Kupiansk, Balakliya, Kozacha Lopan, Shevchenkove, and Izium, torture chambers have been discovered, mostly in police station buildings.
…A man approaches Ukrainian law enforcement officers at the site of a mass grave in Izyum. “Journalists need to be brought to the torture chamber in Izyum,” he says, while an investigator is giving a statement to the press. Maksym—as the man introduces himself—has been in these dungeons himself. The occupiers detained him a week before the city was liberated. Thanks to the liberation of Izyum, the man managed to escape.
GRUNT recounts his story.
“They didn’t explain anything”
I was just at home. The police arrived—well, guys with automatic weapons. They’d show up in different ways. Sometimes in a KamAZ, sometimes in a “Typhoon.” This time, it was just a four-person sabotage and reconnaissance group.
We’ve really learned to listen and hear everything here. If someone drives by, you have to listen carefully. And I heard the sound of a car driving by and stopping somewhere. They stopped near the neighbors—so I wouldn’t notice.
I saw the men with assault rifles through the window. I opened the door. They immediately shouted, “Hands against the wall!” and handcuffed me. I just stood there in handcuffs the whole time they searched the place. They found the keys to my second apartment. We drove there. They conducted a search there. And then—they took me to prison.
They didn’t explain anything. Nor did they explain anything the next day.
“In their slang, torture and electric shocks are called ‘warming up.’”
Of course, I was expecting these explanations. But they simply led me out, pulled a hood over my eyes, and took me—as it turned out—to the torture chamber. They handcuffed me and hooked me up to an electric current.
For the first two days, no one asked me anything—there was only torture. I tried to ask: What do you want? They replied: You know yourself. During the first two days, our “communication” consisted only of such short phrases.
On the third day, there was no torture. They brought me in for questioning. But I was in very poor condition. I had a hood over my head. I couldn’t see anything: it was dark in there—the room was dark—a basement with no light. They had headlamps and were shining them on me. They said, “Let’s have a normal conversation.” I replied, “Let’s do it.” Then the questions began: “When did the SBU recruit you?” “Who recruited you?”
As I understood it, at first they try to completely break a person. It takes two days to break a person. As they put it: “We were ‘warming him up.’” In their slang, torture and electric shocks are called “warming up.” Only after that did they begin the interrogations.
I was held captive for a week—the last week before the Ukrainian army’s offensive and the liberation of the city.
The Russians carried out the torture in prison. The “Elener” members acted as “police.” They also served as prison guards.
There were three of us in one cell. The other two were former ATO fighters. Local guys who had taken part in combat operations in Donbas in 2014–2015. I’m just an ordinary civilian. On the last three days, they brought in a fourth person.
He was a young guy. They brought him in blindfolded. We started asking him questions. He said he’d been brought from Balakliya. He said he’d left the Ukrainian Armed Forces—that he and his comrades had fled on February 25… They’d been staying with a family for three months, and then decided to cross into Ukraine. The Russians detained him.
And so he tells us his story and says, “Until yesterday, I was in Balakliya. And then a force majeure happened.” We didn’t even ask what kind of force majeure it was. It wasn’t until the next day that he let slip that Balakliya had been taken. We asked, “What do you mean?!” That’s when the meaning of the phrase “force majeure” finally sank in for me. That’s how we found out about the liberation of the cities.
And when Ukraine was advancing on Izyum, the whole city was already buzzing.
“If anything happens—tomorrow they’ll toss a grenade into everyone’s food trough”
When the Ukrainian army entered the city, they fled. I was lucky to escape.
The night before, the Russians were very nervous. Some new guards came to us—not the same ones as before. They said Ukraine was advancing. And if anything happened, tomorrow they’d throw a grenade into each “feeding trough.”
The next morning, the “Eleners” rushed in. They were fleeing, already dressed in civilian clothes. They opened all the cells and warned us to run—saying, “The Russians are coming now; they’ll shoot you.”
There was a room with a large closet. It had open compartments. That’s where they kept personal belongings confiscated during the arrest, including passports. But I couldn’t find mine.
We all scattered. It was such a sunny day back then. I ran through the city. I didn’t want to fall into their hands again at all.
They usually guarded the bridge. When I crossed the river via the bridge, I asked people, “Is anyone there?” They gave different answers. I ran to the other end of the city and saw a long column of Russian military vehicles lined up along the highway. They were heading toward the village of Oskil.
And then I made it to Ukraine. And thank God.
This is an automatic translation generated by DeepL.